Pushed pretty hard in the Time Trial to get a good seed; to my surprise I managed to snag the top spot (for the second year in a row) by a 15s margin. Nav'd it well except for not reading the entire leg to 2 and getting lured into going left. Although I still tied for top split so either *everyone* got tricked or it wasn't any slower.

An excellent thing happened here. I was in the very first heat, and naturally everyone else was hanging around the start and watching to see where we went. I flipped the map and headed off in the general direction of 1, which led me around the left side of a large forested grove. Only when I had committed did I realize I'd have to swing way back across the parking lot to the right to follow the road which was very clearly the best route. As I was fixing that, about where 12 is I sheepishly caught up to Jonah, a 14-15yo kid from Vancouver. It turned out that of the five people in our heat, he was the only one to make the right choice out of the start! Much respect, Jonah.

Anyway the best part is that most people in the remaining heats, for some reason, assumed that the way *four* people (including a US Team member...) went was the right way, and the way that *one* kid went was not the right way - so, like, 50 or 60 people made the wrong choice largely as a result of my lazy navigation.

Fun race with some tricky bits here and there. I was alone pretty much the whole time but still took it at a comfortably brisk pace because my legs were feeling energetic. This was the race where I started feeling good about my overall chances, as I ended up fourth overall in the heat despite not pushing hard.

I've done enough orienteering that it's not often I get a completely new experience, but a night sprint on a golf course is one. In the daytime this would be a glorified XC race, but the darkness introduced the perfect complication to make the nav interesting but still fast, while at the same time because it's a golf course you didn't have to worry about usual night-o things like impaling yourself on a stick, stepping in a hole, etc. All in all a really fun and unique experience.

As for the actual race, I had David in my heat so I knew this would be the first real challenge. I made a 20s mistake on 2, but I think he followed me so I was still in the lead. I opened a bit of a lead on the long leg to 9, but then bobbled the final approach, so we came together again till somewhere around 15 where he didn't seem to be there anymore and I was able to coast into the finish. Took this race at a fast pace, but still comfortable. Legs still feeling fresh and springy.